Jeff, Teena and Aylin

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Kindergarten

June was a busy busy month 'round the Melton house! We completed Kindergarten (I say we, because it really is a family thing...parts for everyone to play.) We've been catching lightening bugs, trekking to the Farmer's Market, doing crafts, playing in the sprinkler, playdates, and traveling to Charlotte (there's a separate post for that one coming up). I also rode my bike from the house to Harp's for the first time before school let out for the summer. It was nice to check that off my list and know that not only can i do it, but that it wasn't all that bad. I was pretty nervous about it, my heart was racing and not just because I was getting a bit of a workout. But in the end, I managed to navigate just fine and didn't run into anything or anyone! I even had to find an alternate route when a squad of fire trucks was blocking my way to the store. To think... this is just the beginning of our summer fun! Now on to the pictures!

Here we have the "Last Day of School" mix:

1) Aylin is very proud of her Field Day participation award

2) Last day of Kindergarten!

3) Last walk to school as a Kindergartener

4) Last lunch in the cafeteria with mom and Silly Selfies

5) Aylin with her teacher, Mrs. Scott, on her last day

6) Last day of school fun treat!

7) Last day of school crazy class pic.

Next up the "Play Time" mix:

1) Splash Park fun

2) Sprinkler fun

3) Experimenting with textures on clay at the Kids Art Park (at the Farmer's Market)

4) Same as #3 :)

5) Helping in a giant weaving project to be auctioned off, also part of the Kids Art Park

6) Gotta get a pic in the miniature Sam Walton pick up truck

7) Garden Tea Parties with a friend

8) Checking out the kids area at Crystal Bridges with friends

9) Shouting into the horn at Crystal Bridges with friends

And now for "Our Back Yard Visitors"

We've enjoyed the deer sightings in our back yard. It's been pretty surreal to see so many deer, in daylight hours, IN TOWN.

Next we have my "Random Pic(k)s"

1) All dressed up for a date with daddy!

2) A nice quiet (and cooler than normal) June evening, keeping the skeeterz at bay with my torch.

So May was a pretty full month! We had a little over a week break from school, during which the first Bentonville Film Festival was held. We also enjoyed our First Friday Flick for the summer at the Lawrence Plaza - Big Hero 6, and Aylin had a friend from school meet her to watch the movie with her. That sweet little guy made his mom wait with him in line nearly 30 minutes to get a flower balloon before the movie so he could give it to Aylin. Precious! And who could resist a walk to the library with a banana split on the way home?! Not US!

Then for mother's day we enjoyed a day at Crystal Bridges with Papa Joe and Grama Linda and company. Aylin adores her Uncle Robert, and she spent most of the trip in the museum attached to him. We also enjoyed a meal at Flying Fish where Aylin made everyone try her fortune telling fish - lots of fun!

Then to top it all off Aylin and I both got haircuts and will be donating our locks. We are both loving our new short do's, just perfect for summer time! Now if we could just get it to stop raining... Aylin also had a project to complete for her class - Flat Stanley. We were supposed to pick a place or business in Bentonville and learn about it, and then bring our findings back to the school to talk to the class about it. Aylin picked the library, because that is one of her favorite places to be. We had fun gathering materials for the project.

Well that's the skinny on the month of May in the Melton Casa. Stay tuned, June and summer break are upon us!

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I got the opportunity to tag along on a field trip with Aylin's class last week. We visited the Gentry Safari and the petting zoo. The kids had an amazing time. I rode along with another mom and we met the buses in Gentry. It was pretty wild being on the bus, though, packed with kindergarteners driving through the safari. I honestly didn't get to see much because I sat on the inside aisle seat so that the kids could stand on the seats and plaster themselves against the windows. I did manage to snap a few shots of the big cats, as well as a few others. Then I got to attempt to keep up with 4 of the kiddos and escort them through the various exciting sights through the petting zoo. That part was pretty fun. The kids got to feed the giraffes lettuce. Then I was given a loaf of bread to pass out to the kids to feed to any critter that would get close enough to eat it. Although most of the critters just got food thrown at them as the kids got timid once they got close to things. Especially the kangaroos. Notice how Aylin was the farthest away in the picture with the kangaroo. She was not getting ANY closer than that. Apparently the swift movements put her way out of her comfort zone where animals are concerned. We saw monkeys, pot bellied pigs, kangaroos, peacocks, rabbits, goats, various types of exotic birds. Lots of fun was had. Here is my picture collage to mark the day. :)

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So Aylin got to experience the joy of getting her very first cavity fixed last Monday. I really hadn't expected to have to deal with that quite so soon... Clearly we need to work on getting those toofers cleaned better. Anywho... The dentist highly recommended we use the "happy gas" even though our insurance didn't cover it. So we went with it, and I'm glad we did. She was pretty nervous to start, and even cried just having to put on the "piggy nose" (happy gas) because "it was weird". But after having it on for about 60 seconds the happy kicked in, and she was quite the goofball. She cracked herself up several times, and told the dentist and his assistant that everyone that worked at the dentist office should wear shorts, swim suites, flip flops, and piggy noses for their daily uniform at work. He got quite the kick out of her. He also joked that he should start an anonymous twitter account for "things kids say while on nitrous", I'm sure it would be a hoot if Aylin was any indication. So here are our pictures from the event.

Honestly the worst part was a combination of waiting for the numbness to wear off, and that half asleep tingling sensation while her mouth slowly came back to life. She fussed with and bit on her lip enough while it was numb that she'd made it raw and swollen. She reacted to it the same way I do; it lasted FOREVER. She had the work done at 4pm and the numbness still hadn't gone away by bedtime at 7:30. Thankfully she was worn out enough that even though she cried herself to sleep, it didn't take long for her to just give in and fall asleep.

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Aylin really enjoyed the One District One Book of The World According to Humphrey. It was a fun addition to our nightly story time. At the end of the book, they had a week at school where each day had a fun dress up theme. A few of those days were missed because of various things. But we managed to get the "dress as your favorite character", and "dress as your favorite animal" days. She dressed as teacher Ms. Mac from the book, and also as a cat. Fun times! Aylin really has exploded into the reading world far faster than I expected. She continues to amaze me every day with how well she reads and how much she loves it.

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Here are a few fun things that have been happening the last couple of months with Aylin:

1) The Ginger Girl is going to start taking ballet - She is SUPER EXCITED﻿﻿﻿ (if I cold make those words glow and sparkle maybe then it would truly convey her excitement). We're joining some friends from community group where the ballet is taught at a church and they use praise and worship music. It'll be fun to have friends to do an after school activity with. At the end of 3 months they do a recital, and Aylin is already geared up for it even though she hasn't yet attended her first class. She's also thoroughly convinced that she already knows every thing there is to know about ballet and she's just going to go dance with friends. I love her confidence, but sometimes... Oy.

2) And before ever introducing the idea of ballet lessons to the Ginger Girl simply cannot keep still if there is a groovy beat (or soft and flowing music, just any music at all really), so here she is dancing along at one of our runs to Starbucks.

3) THIS is a super fun kiddo. She was a real trooper when some of my intricately planned details ended up in the trash. The PLAN had been that on this particular Friday I would attend her school's monthly assembly (otherwise known as BASH) where she'd get called as a February Birthday, and then I would stay for the day at the school and assist with the class Valentines party. However the class party ended up moving to Thursday instead and I had a conflict and was then unable to attend. So I still attended BASH, where she not only got her Happy Birthday recognition, but ALSO got an AWARD for Extraordinary Effort (WOO)! Then I stayed and had lunch with her and we did crazy things like take goofy photos and look up silly cat pictures on my phone.

4) This is the sweetheart who was ecstatic to have her Daddy go attend the "Doughnuts with Dad" event at school with her.

5) The Ginger Girl enjoying her raspberry Hot Chocolate at Kennedy Coffee which HAS HER NAME ON IT (Oh my goodness the excitement was so real). We had a super fun family date night where we went to Chili's for dinner followed up with yummy hot drinks for all.

6) The Ginger Girl growing up without my permission... The headphones and ipod in her big chair just really get me. How did she get this big?!

7) The Ginger Girl on her FAVORITE thing EVAR at the playground. This girl just HEARTS swings. I'm confident that if we had one in our yard we would almost never see her. When she talks about recess at school it almost always involves the swings and who she was with on the swings.

8) PIANO - Oh my goodness! I can't even, ya'll. My heart is so full right now. When we first acquired the piano from the sweet Acosta family Aylin was not interested in being shown how to play (reference previous point about knowing all about ballet before even taking a lesson...) so I just let it be for a while. I didn't want to force it and for it to become not fun. My mom sent me a lot of my old piano music - including lots of the beginners workbooks that I used when I learned how to play so many moons ago. Well we've hit a sweet spot finally! She wanted to learn how to play an actual song, rather than something she made up. So we're starting out very slowly and "lessons" only take place when they're requested. But we're both loving the process right now, and I'm ecstatic to be able to teach her.

9) And last but not least (And clearly my photos are out of order...) The Ginger Girl all dolled up for our sweet friend's - Joel & Cari - wedding. What a beautiful day that was, and we all had so much fun! Woo!

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By January we were already sick and tired of snow, and being cooped up in the house. So. Much. Snow.

February

Aylin turned 5.

We added pets to the Melton Casa - FISH

Jeff received his 1 year evaluation which was hugely positive, and awesome considering he had completely changed career fields.

Teena hit the 5 pounds lost mark.

March

Jeff ran a 10k

Jeff and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary.

April

I (Teena) walked across the overpass bridge separating me from Bentonville and walked the 2.5 miles to the square in downtown Bentonville.

Jeff ran a 5k with his work buddies, while Aylin and I participated in the fun run. While doing so I realized that maybe I could do this running thing, too.

Teena hit the 10 pounds lost mark.

May

Teena began using the C25K training app, and started running for the first time.

June

Aylin graduated from her preschool class at Mary's Little Lamb's.

Teena, Aylin, and Uncle Richard traveled to Tennessee to meet up with more of the Leach crew for a week with the family to (pre)Celebrate Dad's (Tom Leach) 60th birthday!

July

Ayin went to spend a week with her Papa Joe and Grama Linda in Harrison, while Jeff and I packed in 3 dates into the week. One of which ended abruptly when a roach fell from the light fixture above our table into Jeff's plate of food that we had *just* finished with. Another of the dates was a fun evening at the AMP sitting on the lawn watching Alison Krauss with Union Station and Willie Nelson.

Aylin, along with momma and daddy attended her new school's open house.

August

Aylin began Kindergarten with a bang. There was much to get accustomed to, but once we fell into rhythm things started moving more smoothly. This took between 6 and 8 weeks for the behavior problems to clear up.

Teena hit the 15 pounds lost mark.

September

The Melton family plugged into a community group.

Aylin began to READ.

October

Aylin attended her very first field trip to a pumpkin patch with the kindergarten class.

Jeff and I attended our very first Parent Teacher conference, which was super positive.